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Monday, October 29, 2012

Today we are featuring the fabulous Helen M Sant. Helen is an experienced storyteller, performance poet and writer, and originates from Leeds. She currently co-hosts 'The Speaker's Corner' prose and poetry night in York. If you have ever heard Helen telling a story there, you know that you have been in for a treat.

As Gothic Molly, Helen runs Haunted Pub tours round the York area or can adapt to provide a ghost walk in your town or ghostly event in your pub! She can arrange ghost suppers, ghost walks, or ghost parties for your group. Contact her via the Ghosts of York website.

In her storytelling guise, Helen is available for children's birthday parties, festival appearances, workshops, schools or other storytelling events. Contact her via the York Storytellers website.

Carolyn O'Connell lives in Richmond on Thames. Her poems have appeared in various magazines including Envoi, Partners, Interpreter’s House, Poetry Showcase, and the anthology Genius Floored. Find more about Carolyn on the poetry pf site, and the Second Light Live site. She is a member of the Ormonde Poetry Group, and attends the poetry events Bright Scarf in Richmond and Rhythm and Muse in Kingston.

Alison Hill runs Rhythm and Muse, a monthly poetry and music night at the Ram Jam Club in Kingston on Thames. Her work has appeared in a range of magazines and anthologies and her pamphlet, Peppercorn Rent, was published by Flarestack in 2008. She has just completed a full collection, Slate Rising. Alison was Kingston Libraries' first Poet in Residence (2011-2012)

Friday, October 12, 2012

“I forget to say,” said Ivanka, turning round in her seat as the driver took both hands off the steering wheel to light a cigarette. “Your poetry group is very welcome to Karetsefia. Our versifiers keenly anticipate your readings.”

“We’re honoured to have been invited,” replied Steve expansively, “and we hope to take something of your country back with us.”

“Not icons,” said Ivanka. “You cannot take back icons.”

“No, I didn’t mean that. I meant the spirit of the place.”

“Yes, vodka you take.”

They drove for a long time, past woods and fields and immense graveyards, full of garish plastic flowers. Once, an enormous bird rose from the roadside verge.

“Good grief,” said Steve. “Golden eagle.”

“I forget to say,” said Ivanka. “Because you go back different way, you must buy return ticket in person, as soon as possible.”

Ferris raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

“Because,” said Ivanka, “that is the way it is.”

As they approached the city, Julie noticed that both the buildings and the potholes were getting larger. Impossibly long roads stretched before them, with blocks of flats joined together like the Great Wall of China; no break between them, every door and every window exactly the same. And then they were into the city proper, with its older tenements and its extravagant churches and its tramlines cunningly hidden between the cobblestones.

“Everything’s in Cyrillic,” said Sybil indignantly, looking at the shop signs and the street names. “We’re going to have trouble finding our way around. Some of the letters are similar, though. There’s a P.”

But the inside was a real surprise. The staircase wouldn’t have looked out of place in a palace; nor would the chandeliers or the parquet flooring.

They checked in. Ivanka translated, although both she and the glamorous receptionist looked very worried when Sybil and Julie said they were sharing, and Steve and Ferris said they were doing the same.

“We’re all just friends,” Julie explained, suddenly aware that her jeans and trainers looked far too androgynous out here.

“Yes. Indeed,” said Ivanka uneasily. “You are in Room 69.”

Ferris burst out laughing. Steve allowed himself the measured smile of someone who felt himself to be a national institution, but broad-minded with it.

The lift wasn’t big enough to take more than three of them, so Julie, Sybil and Ivanka went up first. Sybil unlocked the door, and was presented with a second door barely two feet further in. The key unlocked this door as well.

It wasn’t a room; it was a suite, fit for a visiting head of state. Antique furniture, windows the size of church doors, a life-sized painting of a man with a moustache on a sleigh, driving crazed horses through the snow with a pack of wolves in hot pursuit.

“Blimey,” said Julie.

“Bathroom,” said Ivanka, throwing open the nearest door.

“Hot water?” queried Sybil.

Ivanka just laughed, shut the bathroom door, and moved on to the next one.

Elizabeth Kay has had a varied writing career, from radio plays and short stories to poetry and novels for both adults and children. She has won a number of prizes, including the Cardiff International Poetry Competition and the Canongate Prize for short stories, and lists as her hobbies travelling to obscure destinations and trying not to get eaten by the local wildlife.

Four British poets accept an invitation to make a cultural visit to a little-known ex-soviet country and soon find themselves in a Kafkaesque labyrinth of mistaken identity, fake email addresses, impossibly high stilettos and impossibly cheap vodka. Clever, inventive and funny, Beware of Men with Moustaches twists and turns its way through the literary and scenic highlights of Karetsefia, as its characters gradually become aware of their own insularity in a country which is struggling to come to terms with its new identity – and where people have more to worry about than whether or not their next poetry collection is going to be published.

About Joanna

This blog has been running since 2007 and has been archived by the British Library. I have a young adult novel, 'The Inside-Out House', published by Indigo Dreams, and two poetry collections, 'Centuries of Skin' (Ragged Raven) and 'Homecoming' (Valley Press, due April 2016). I am a creative writing tutor for the Open University and am completing my second young adult novel.